


✿ Reflection

by crankparadise



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 10:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3606246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crankparadise/pseuds/crankparadise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Thomas, wasn’t one to dwell on the bad, in fact some would think he barely even chose to remember it."</p><p>Alternate Ending AU, Happy Thominewt drabble. Thomas takes the time to reflect on successfully defeating an angel’s sadness, and how far they’ve come since W.I.C.K.E.D.</p>
            </blockquote>





	✿ Reflection

It had two years since everything they’d ever known, exactly two years. And Thomas woke up to the gentle haze of the early morning’s dappling sunlight, his mind, as it rarely was, was full of calm reflection. Thomas knew, like most around him knew, that he wasn’t the thoughtful, reflective kind; not in the slightest. This wasn’t because he lacked empathy or that he lacked care, it was simply a coping mechanism. Maybe it was something that they destroyed in him, but he would rather not dwell on the horror they endured in the hands of WICKED, he’d rather not think about what happened, how he had felt, what he did. He didn’t want to think about the reality of the brutal tests that took the place of childhood and darkened their past, so he simply chose not to. He would talk about it if the others needed to, of course, but he chose to remain positive, think forward.  
  
Thanks to his attitude of looking forward and not back, he had generally experienced less flashbacks of their unimaginable experience. At least, less than some of his closest friends did. His legs didn’t buckle and make him fall into a heap of hopelessness like so often happened to Newt. He also didn’t absently yet so presently touch his scars and curse under his breath like Minho occasionally did. He didn’t flinch at every raised hand or sudden movement like Chuck or, like Gally did, kick walls as if they were the kind that closed forever. Thomas, wasn’t one to dwell on the bad, in fact some would think he barely even chose to remember it.

Teresa did something similar, but she talked about everything sensitively and with ease, the past didn’t bother her as it was a means to move forward. Thomas couldn’t reflect the same ease but that didn’t surprise him, she had always been stronger. He was able to grieve and regret, of course, but always silently, never negatively and only in the way that he could use his life for better. To, almost smugly, enjoy life after all that they had been through. Over these past two years, Thomas had built himself to remember the good instead of the bad, which he didn’t deem as necessarily weak, with all things considered.

Thomas didn’t dwell and think because generally when reflection on the past came, it did so in the form of the guilty, oppressive phantom thoughts that he tended not to let creep into his consciousness. When those heavy, selfish, worthlessness-ridden thoughts clouded his ears and darkened his mind, he quickly shook them from his head. Rather in the way that allowed him to appreciate his own small world, the misery was gone.   
  
Some mornings, only when the need arose, Thomas took the time to reflect in secrecy, as sort of a mental diary of how far he and his friends had come.  
  
Though unusually thoughtful, Thomas was otherwise generally well rested today, and had absolutely no obligations or commitments that were before him. As he brought his body to wake, he stretched the tiredness from his bones and rubbed his slack jaw and eyes, both heavy from sleep. Thomas chose to think about the two figures that shared his bed and his world, who grumbled and stirred at the sudden unwelcomed movement of his early rising. Thomas watched as they lazily clung closer together in a gentle sort of comatose revolt. He smiled and watched for a moment as they slept. Newt in the middle as always, facing Thomas and little spoon to Minho. He had snuggled backwards into Minho, sleepily seeking refuge from the cold that Thomas let in when he moved the blanket. Minho must have felt him squirm because he had habitually slung an arm around and tucked him in tighter, his face nestled into Newt’s tufty bedhair. Thomas smiled fondly at them, thinking of how the world outside was crisp, awake and ready to be conquered, while his own small world here was sleepy, warm and very much his own.  
  
Quietly leaving the sleepy atmosphere that was the bedroom, Thomas made his way around the small, humble flat that he shared with Newt and Minho, thinking all the while. It was funny how two people who he had found in the worst of times, could almost accidentally and so naturally become his whole world. As he made his way from the bedroom to the cluttered kitchen, Thomas opened all the curtains, letting in the same crack of sunlight that had woken him and was making it’s way to slowly fill the whole sky for the day.  
  
It was in fact ridiculously early, far too early to be Thomas’ natural waking-up time and he knew that his two best friends? lovers? all of these things? whatever they were, would be both amused and baffled by Thomas’ usual early rising. Little did they know, he did this occasionally; taking a seat on the little beat-up sofa in their kitchen. Thomas allowed himself to be emmersed in thoughtfulness.  
  
He thought of Newt and Minho, and all they had found and lost. He thought about what Newt had excitedly told them last night, about being happy. He thought of all they had worked for and whatever they had become together. He thought about how Newt’s sadness, which was now gone, had been the only object in plain sight for both himself and for Minho. How their immediate freedom issued the need and desire to fix whatever was broken in Newt, even if they didn’t fully understand it. It was a sadness that was so painfully there even from the moment of the surreal buzz of being reunited with everyone at the destruction of WICKED’s world. Even then, at a time of such happiness for most of them, Newt’s eyes had been heavy and plagued with complete and utter desolate sadness. His sadness had been the voice that finds an ear in the cloud of a hundred voices. It was the tiny fleck of dust on a blank canvas. The unexplainable error, the broken piece that needed held together. It was everything, and it totally and entirely consumed their friend, far worse than the flare ever could have.   
  
Thomas thought about the medical robes and white rooms. When they had all been checked out by medical teams after everything had been uncovered. Newt had been very quickly diagnosed with depression, and Thomas remembered how, when the kind nurse told them, Minho had scoffed because he knew. Minho didn’t allow himself to be looked at by the medical teams, as WICKED had destroyed his trust in any person of power, especially those who claimed to know so much about Newt.   
Minho had muttered about how he could have diagnosed Newt’s depression both years ago, and with his eyes closed, no less. And while it was something Thomas didn’t understand, Minho simply told him it was the worst kind of sadness and that Newt had it in the glade. Nonetheless, they all hated the word, Minho and Thomas promised to only ever refer to it as “the sadness”.  
  
Thomas let himself think about Newt’s long, recent recovery, as Newt’s sadness has been the first thing Thomas and Minho had vowed to conquer upon freedom from WICKED. It was the first common goal they shared in the form of a knowing nod as they stepped into a world in which they finally had control of and belonged to.

Thomas remembered how Newt was a ghost for months, after they’d escaped WICKED and found a little flat of their own. How some days he couldn’t even stand up with the weight of the sadness. How he couldn’t lift his head to even look at Alby for weeks because he had begged for death, and thus had utterly and completely let Alby down. How he was hollow because he couldn’t be happy and guilty because he knew he should be. Thomas remembered with a heavy heart how Newt’s new life began with just constantly hovering behind Minho, every minute of every day. A little sad ghost who’s hands shook as he stretched them out to Minho, who couldn’t bare to be physically apart from him even for a minute. Thomas remembered how for weeks he would feel Newt before seeing him, and would barely ever hear him. He remembered how when he found himself doing the dishes or absently looking out at the stars or into the distant trees, Newt would slump against Thomas’ back for a lack of conversation. Or how Newt greeted him in the form of a heavy head on his shoulder, or long fingers that so gently clutched his sleeve and tugged in an action that pleaded for comfort, or was filled with sorry when he couldn’t find the words to say so. He couldn’t find his voice for so long to even speak to Thomas after begging to die in the way he did. So he simply hung around him and clutched him without words, and it broke Thomas’ heart to see him like that.

It got better, and six months into the world, there was a blurry house party that Thomas can otherwise barely remember. Newt, honest with underaged drinking, had told Thomas in a hushed, frightened whisper, that every day reminded him of how he had been defeated in his every attempt at death. Words had never hit him harder.  
  
Sure Newt was alive, with plenty of friends, Flare-negative and under constant protection by the two people who loved him endlessly, but for at least one year he was glossed with an artificial smile and eyes that wanted to be dead.  
  
Eventually, death had left his eyes, and although Newt took adjusting to the possibility of living much longer than anyone else, he came to be the one to love life the most. He still carried his sadness, but it wasn’t a constraint. Eventually he could laugh and forgive himself even if he was still utterly dependent. He became able to enjoy the day while separation from Minho and Thomas during it caused him every anxiety. They were gently working on it, they were slowly winning.  
  
Minho was Newt’s crutch in every way. He was able to guide Newt through everyday practical necessities that depression made Newt forget, and despite his brash, satirical self, he went about Newt’s needs quietly and humbly and absolutely nothing was a bother when it came to Newt. Minho was the voice that reminded Newt about living. He made him meals even when he didn’t feel like breathing nevermind eating, and reminded him of daily events that he didn’t care for. Minho was strict on Newt’s medicine intake and routines. He was also always ready with unexpected, but gratefully recieved, long meaningful hugs. As well as perfecting a certain gentleness in his voice that was for Newt only. He used this voice to whisper every word Newt needed to hit directly into the core of his clouded mind. Such as on those days when his head was particularly hard to hold up and could only find comfort tucked in carefully against Minho’s neck. Minho cared for Newt with ease and never failed to execute the very real practice of love in everything he did for Newt.  
  
Thomas thought about how at first he had been little jealous, as Minho’s care for Newt was established, practiced, confident, just like the nature of their personal relationship. Thomas’ care for Newt was a bit clumsy, a tad tentative, but getting stronger, much like his own personal relationship with Newt. Thomas’ words didn’t help as much as Minho’s did, as they didn’t come to him as easily. Although he was steadily getting there, Thomas simply didn’t know Newt back to front and inside out like Minho did, at least not yet. Newt’s sadness and especially his outbursts made Thomas’ mouth dry and his tongue tie, it made him flustered and caught between his desire to help and lack of knowledge how to, so he could only raise his hands in defeat when the many outbursts happened. He was able to catch Newt when he cried though: when he dropped a glass, or when he found himself begging Thomas “please” in that terrible, familiar way. Like Minho, Thomas would never let Newt fall again, and Newt needed them both just as much, so Thomas eventually found his own system to help his sad friend.   
  
He found he was able to provide the necessary affection and distraction by chasing away the sadness with fun. It proved remarkably helpful for Thomas to just occasionally play and roll around with Newt. He’d read somewhere that laughter released happy endorphins, he couldn’t remember where. But what he did know, was that together they would laugh until their ribs hurt and for a second; just for a second, they were the children that they couldn’t remember.  
  
Thomas also helped defeat the sadness by being the platform to allow Newt to take up, once again, his second-in-command role which he had once held so much pride in. Newt was incredibly dependent and submissive, and Thomas wasn’t sure if that was due to the sadness or whether he had always been that way, but he let Newt playfully boss him around which proved a great help in conquering the sadness. Newt would command Thomas to read to him and brush his hair and help him do the little things he sometimes didn’t have the strength to do, but in a way that meant he didn’t feel quite so helpless. Thomas was able to allow the illusion that Newt was taking care of him, be in control of him, when it was quite the opposite.  
  
Together, slowly but surely, they had built him up again, they had jumped all the hurdles until Newt’s sadness was effectively gone. Thomas thought about last night how the three of them were, not unusually, clustered together in their shared bed, desperately clinging to the sheets and to each other, and breathlessly caught up in the acts of pure love.  
  
After their love-making had slowed to soft caresses and hushed endearments, Newt had whispered proudly that he wasn’t sad anymore, not in the slightest; and that it was all thanks to Thomas and Minho and he could finally love himself as much as they did.   
These new words, hit Thomas right in the heart.  
  
"Maybe  _almost_  as much.” Minho had tried to jest, though his eyes were brimming with love in the way that only words from Newt could cause them to.  
  
Of course Newt was a big part of his own recovery too, and they had been sure to remind him of this as they tucked him firmly in and cradled him close between them as they did every night. Thomas and Minho had then shared a kiss and a triumphant look. As, although it took a little longer than everyone else, Newt was back and ready to enjoy life like the rest of them.  
  
It was a small sign of recovery, and it probably wouldn’t mean a lot to the waking world outside. But it was big in their small world, and it was one that Thomas wanted to think about that day, on his own, with his sights set on the future as they always were. Though reflected and missing the warmth of Newt and Minho, Thomas made his way back to the bedroom.

Sure enough, his sun and moon were still blissfully comatose and clinging to eachother just as they had been when Thomas left them moments ago. He joined them gently once again, cautiously scooping Newt from Minho’s protective grasp, and settling him in his arms. Then as Thomas, lulled by Newt’s breathing against his neck, nodded back to sleep; he thought of his little reflective secret. Minho and Newt would probably never know that he was more thoughtful than they imagined, that Thomas spends some early mornings thinking about how far they’ve come. They won’t know that Thomas sometimes quietly takes time to think in the glow of the sunrise and smile at their little, but big victory of having defeated the sadness in Newt. He didn’t really think they needed to know.

He would continue to remain known as one that doesn’t tend to reflect, he would continue to indulge in his more reflective side from time to time.  
  
Thomas fell asleep to the fact that things would keep getting better, and they would always be together.


End file.
